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NDP leader Adrian Dix is the most lobbied politician in B.C. outside the Liberal cabinet, according to an analysis of lobbyist registry data by The Vancouver Sun.

Two of his key lieutenants, finance critic Bruce Ralston and energy critic John Horgan, are in second and third place.

Lobbyists in B.C. are required to register with the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists whenever they ave lobbied, or intend to lobby, a politician or government official.

The registry is searchable online. However, there’s no simple way to see which organizations are doing the most lobbying in or which politicians are being lobbied the most. To help answer those questions, The Sun asked Registrar Elizabeth Denham for the raw data behind the registry, which she provided earlier this month.

A detailed analysis of that data reveals that, among lobbyists active in B.C. on April 1, Dix was listed as a target 217 times, making him the most-lobbied MLA not in cabinet. Ralston was second at 152 and Horgan third at 145. NDP environment critic Rob Fleming and health critic Mike Farnworth also made the top five.

All five were listed less often than key B.C. Liberal cabinet ministers like Energy Minister Rich Coleman (367), Finance Minister Mike de Jong (344) and Jobs Minister Pat Bell (337).

Ralston said some lobbyists will make a point, whenever they meet with a government minister, of scheduling a meeting with the opposition critic, too. However, Ralston said there’s also been a noticeable increase in lobbyists seeking meetings with him over the past year.

“That’s to be expected,” said Ralston. “I mean, if you’re ... a lobbyist and you do business in the province, our polling numbers — you know, we’re not presuming we’re going to win or anything — but as a matter of business practice and managing risk and introducing yourself to someone that may win, that’s what they’re doing.”

Enbridge — whose Northern Gateway Pipeline the NDP has opposed — is listed in the registry as the most active lobbyist of both Ralston and Horgan and the second-most-active lobbyist, after natural gas producer Encana, of Dix.

However, Ralston said he hasn’t met with Enbridge in more than a year.

B.C.’s Lobbyist Registration Act requires lobbyists to list politicians they expect to contact and doesn’t require them to record when they’ve had a meeting.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t differentiate in the registry between actual lobbying and intention to lobby,” said Denham. “It obscures transparency.”

In January, Denham released 13 recommendations on how she thinks the Act could be improved, including requiring lobbyists to register all their meetings with government officials within 10 days.

In interviews, politicians on both sides of the aisle — including Ralston, Coleman and Bell — said they’d support such a change, saying the current system creates an inflated sense of how often they’re meeting with lobbyists.

Denham has also recommended abolishing a requirement that lobbyists only need to register if they spend 100 hours or more a year on lobbying-related activities.

“What was originally intended to protect the small or ‘one-off’ lobbying effort has become a free pass for all organizations — from multinational corporations to labour unions to chambers of commerce and boards of trade, to name a few — to lobby 100 hours without having to register,” she wrote in her report.

Denham said all lobbying organizations, no matter how small, should be required to register to give the public as complete a picture as possible of who’s trying to influence government.

The changes Denham seeks will require a change in law.

“I’m hoping whoever the new government is will take a close look at the report we just issued and move ahead on making some changes,” she said.

In the meantime, Denham said her office is working on improving the search options 0on its website so that members of the public can more easily access information on lobbying activities in B.C.

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